February 20th, 2013 by Brian Beeler

Dell DR4100 Backup and Recovery Appliance Released

Dell has announced the DR4100, an update to their backup and recovery appliance line that is based on the Fluid Data Architecture. The DR4100 is highlighted by support for deduplication and compression at rates of up to 15 to 1, to help customers tame data sprawl with more efficient storage. While the DR4100 can start as small as 2.7TB, the units are scalable up to 81TB of usable storage thanks to expansion shelves (PowerVault MD1200) and support for 3TB hard drives in the Dell PowerEdge 12th generation server platform that serves as the hardware backbone for the DR4100. The DR4100 also supports 32 to 1 replication ability for improved flexibility and support for data protection at branch/remote offices.

The DR4100 meets a variety of customer needs, ranging from a small business looking for an entry backup appliance, to larger organizations that want more backup data to reside easily accessible on disk, before being shipped off to long term archival storage on tape. To help the DR4100 blend more seamlessly into an organization with existing backup and recovery protocol, the DR4100 has been certified with additional backup and recovery software from Dell and other software providers including AppAssure, Quest, Symantec, CommVault, Oracle and CA.

While the deduplication and compression features may be an assumed feature by some, not all backup appliances in this category offer such features. With expansion capabilities up to 81TB today using 3TB disks (one DR4100 and two MD1200 expansion shelves), the actual storage capacity could range all the way up to 1.2PB with fully compressible data. These gains are driven by Dell's Ocarina technology, which provides algorithms that eliminates redundant copies of data with little to no impact on the DR4100's backup and recovery performance.

Deployments can start as small as 2.7TB though, for organizations with less to back up but the vision to see their ever expanding data footprint will require a more robust solution going forward. Customers may choose from 1TB, 2TB or 3TB drives until the main chassis is full, then add expansion shelves with the scale needed in 9TB, 18TB or 27TB capacities. For businesses that have multiple offices to coordinate, the DR4100 may be configured to handle many-to-one replication with up to 32 nodes replicating to a central repository. This is a significant improvement from the 5 to 1 replication in the DR4000. The good news though for DR4000 owners is Dell is offering the DR4100 firmware as a free upgrade which will include system improvements like the enhanced 32 to 1 replication.

Pricing and Availability

The DR4100 is expected to be generally available in mid-March. Formal pricing has not been released though Dell expects the DR4100 to align with the DR4000, starting near $14,000 at a 2.7TB capacity. The DR4000 will also be upgradable to the DR4100 firmware in mid-March at no cost.